Christmas Overloaded
by legendarytobes
Summary: Part two of "the family" series started with "Family Traditions" - basically Jonathan turned out to be Clark's due to an extended meta-Kryptonian pregnancy and Lex got his memory back. Now Clark and Lex are preparing Christmas so that Conner, Jonathan and Chloe and Clark's newest on the way can have Holiday sibling bonding. Chlex, Chlark, and one-sided Clex so far.


"Why are we doing this?" Clark grumbled as he stood outside his front porch door. The tree wasn't heavy. He could lift planets it was all pretty much also ran after that. It was more that eight foot tall trees were cumbersome to keep propped up on their own. After all, even they were taller than he was. "I mean you have people for this sort of thing for one thing. For another, isn't part of 'family bonding' all about how we bond? Why sneak a tree in to decorate when no one's here!"

Frustrated, Clark just decided to leant the monster tree against the yellow clapboard. He glared at Lex, which he knew for a fact was a look that made the average mugger sometimes pee themselves. Lex, being the bastard he was just smirked back.

Opening up the front door-and how did he have a key?-Lex shoved his hands in his pockets. "The answers are as follows: Martha's finishing up work in D.C., Tess doesn't have hands, Chloe and Jonathan are at the obstetrician, and Conner had a caseload he couldn't get out from under. We're surprising everyone."

Was he grinning? Did Lex grin? Clark couldn't remember a look that excited since before the other man or, okay, as Chloe called it the 1.0 version had been electrohsocked at Belle Reve.

"Ah, Lex," Clark asked, not sure of how to phrase things exactly. "You're not on anything are you?"

Lex's expression dimmed just a bit. "I like the holidays."

"Since when?"

"Since I have a family that's not sociopathic, well, most of it. I'm not sure that my virtual sister and I completely pass non-violent criminal muster, but we make do. Look, Clark, whatever memories I have are of Christmas with Lionel or, after that, locked in my office working and sometimes taking a sandwich with Otis. Basically, they're all terrible."

Clark sighed and leaned against the house besides the tree, his arms crossed over his chest. "I never thought about it much. I guess, we never had much money when I was a kid. It wasn't like there were boxes everywhere or something. We don't even go to church, never did."

Lex quirked his head but said nothing. Clark still swore the other man had turned his scrutiny up to eleven.

"What? I'm trying to share. Isn't that the point of whatever this is? This weird attempt to please Chloe and Mom?"

Lex's lips pinched. "I'm doing this because I want to surprise the kids-"

"Conner's really like in his mid-twentiesish."

"Or he's maybe a decade old, it all depends."

Clark frowned at that but then blurred and when Lex realized everything had changed, Clark had already managed to lay out the tarp and move all breakables out of the way. If Lex could see far enough in the dark, he'd notice the stand and saws for branches were already set up in the family room. So there. If they were doing family time decorations, at least Clark could get it over with quickly.

"Well played," Lex noted, not even bothering to show shock. "I don't have a scare reflex. Conner's weaned me off it for thirteen months."

"We need to just get this done," Clark whined. "But, okay, so weird thought. If Conner's ten years old, technically, and you're newer, kind of, does that give Conner seniority?"

"Certainly does not," Lex replied, strolling with all that obviously faked insouciance to the living room. Bastard plopped himself down on the couch and started going through the Kent Christmas Box, shaking his head often at the tattered ornaments there. "Clark, Clark, I'm disappointed. We are going to have to do bettter than this."

"You could help me."

"I don't have super strength. I really think that you've got this."

"It's polite to help," he countered. dragging the damn thing with absolutely no grace into the living room in normal speed and fumbling to set it up.

It wasn't the heaviness, but more that he'd never been the best at lining all this up. Before, his dad had been the master of it and then Lois and Chloe, who both were scarily obsessed with perfect trees, directed the set up. By the time he'd shoved it into the stand and sheered the few branches off that interfered with the stand's success, well, okay, it might have been just a bit lopsided.

Lex looked up from the handfull of blown glass ornaments that he'd deemed "appropriate" for a Luthor Christmas and shook his head. "It's crooked. It's leaning left."

"Then you fix it. I paid for the tree, which my reporter's salary is not anywhere close to CEO rates."

"You'll live."

"I do have two kids, you know. Jonathan's still prone to breaking things with his strength and you're filthy rich."

"You're hosting. You buy," Lex countered and was the man ever anything less than calm?

"Then I put it on the minivan-" Lex chuckled again and Clark used his heat vision to fry one of the "acceptable" glass ornaments out of spite. It was something Chloe'd found on sale, some stupid Nutcracker thing he'd hated anyway. "What?"

"You really do live the cliche, Clark."

"And then I drag it in here and set it up. So if you don't like the way I do it, then you fix it. Then at least I can speed the ligths and tinsel."

"Oh you can't do tinsel. What's next, flocking? Maybe you'd like to put out some of those inflatable penguins on your yard."

"I like our penguins."

Lex's eyes went wide with horror. "That was sarcasm. Clark, that's awful. Sullivan and Martha have taste. Granted, it took Sullivan forever to learn it when it came to dressing herself but still."

"I get to decorate the outside, Chloe gets the inside and most of this is what we could afford and what Mom didn't take to D.C. with her. I like inflatables and the light up candy canes. Deal with that."

"You didn't have them out last year," Lex countered, finally standing up and heading to the tree. He shooed Clark away and started making adjustments.

"Chloe and Mom dropped this surprise Christmas Day after I'd been off-planet. I hadn't had time to set things up."

"Or refuse," Lex finished, and Clark had to admit that the tree did look better not leaning over like Tower of Pisa. "Oh so that's how they got me over here."

"I...that sounds bad."

Lex shrugged and started pulling out boxes of lights. "I'm going to start testing these unless your abilities-"

"They don't do everything," Clark snapped. "I bet you'd like to know."

Lex rolled his eyes. "Conner sometimes comes in for check ups, especially since the telekinesis started in June. He allows it and it's not invasive."

"Conner," Clark said, clenching his jaw. "Probably doesn't know better. He could always come to Emil."

Lex shrugged. "He wanted my take on things. I'm just saying that I know enough of enough. Honestly, I don't care anymore and I'm not interested in you and yours under plexiglass. Since anyone ever knowing would hurt my son-"

"Conner's not that. You stole from me! You snuck my DNA and made him, and you don't even seem to care what kind of a violation that is and how unfair it was to Conner or me or how fucked up this is?"

Lex dropped the lights and shoved his hands back in his pockets. "I was wrong to even think this would work. I was trying to surprise people I happen to care about. I shouldn't have been so stupid we'd be able to spend more than an hour together without getting angry."

Clark blinked, aware that his heat vision was close to going off, and he hadn't meant to get that mad. "You know, at a petri dish level, you basically-"

"I didn't! I don't undertand you, at all. If Conner's not Alexander, then why am I still that Lex? Why does he get a pass for trying to murder Martha, and I don't get to be forgiven. Did you really hate me that much, all those years?"

Clark swallowed and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's different."

"How? You just pointed it out. Technically, Lionel made me after. I didn't ask to be cobbled together from spare parts and all this other crap or be thrown into a life where within moments of being back my whole mind was raped from me. Lionel and Tess did those things to me. I did some things with military contracts and applications when you first came out, when aliens started popping up everywhere that I regret, but I wasn't the person who held Chloe and Moira. I wasn't the one who hurt so many of the League. I didn't even know Lana. I've never met her!"

Lex was breathing in ragged gasps and a vein on the side of his forehead was beating in time with his heart. Clark took in a sharp breath. He'd not seen Lex lose his temper since this whole crazy arrangement had started. Sure, he'd pouted and been petty and, according to his mom and wife, said cruel things, but Lex had always been polite every single time they'd gotten together to bond with Conner or to add Jonathan and Chloe to the mix. Clark didn't think Lex could get this upset over old hurts. Wasn't that Clark's territory? He'd been the one to have his DNA stolen and a son or brother or whatever Conner was made without his consent. He'd been the one to pull friends out of labs over and over again, to think Lana had been murdered by that monster.

"I don't care about Lana. I haven't seen her in almost thirteen years. For all her talk, she never did much when Zod's whole group was burning down landmarks and trying to wipe humans out. She was in Africa and I guess she still is now that her suit got fried, but I don't care. This is about the evil you did."

"I didn't do them."

"That's a cop out. Luthors are just-"

"So that applies to Conner and Tess then? Because we all share DNA, so if we're all born evil, why does she run Watchtower and why is Conner a Titan?"

"Then when Lionel raises you, you're a psycho so I should be more scared now that you remember all the crap he did."

"Maybe," Lex countered. "I'll give you that. I suspected most of what I remember now, but feeling it is worse. It keeps me up nights, so maybe I just want to pretend that on Thanksgiving or New Year's that I have a family and they care I exist. That they lo...nevermind. I was foolish. I see where I stand. It doesn't matter that technically I never did those things, certainly less so than Conner's responsible for 'Alexander's' crimes. It doesn't matter that you give anyone elsewith Luthor DNA a pass or that you spent a day or two with Lionel Dearest. It must just be me. So what the Hell do you hate so much about me, Clark?"

"I spent years fighting all these crazy projects like Scion and 33.1 and then working to keep you finding out who I was until at least the Crisis and we had more of a stand-off. I figured you'd pieced the stuff together after that, and just never bothered."

Lex nodded. "I was a vegetable or a blank slate, not stupid. It wasn't that hard."

"I was never discreet; Chloe says that's my problem."

"Utterly. We'll have to work on that for the next generation's sake. I just what is it about me, this Lex standing here right now that you can't stand. What was so horrible that you loathe and mock and shun me?"

Clark sighed and sat down on the sofa. "Because you bring out the worst in me. I hate you because I could have done better. I could have saved you at Belle Reve and I didn't. I could have done more after I saw into your mind in Detroit to stop you from killing Lionel-"

"Oh St. Lionel."

"No, that bastard put me in a Kryptonite cage 'for my own good' a week before your killed him. But it did ruin him...you...whoever, and I could have done more. Because that stupid pissing contest over Lana, which was so much time wasted since I never loved her, not the way I loved Lois and do love Chloe, not at all. It was all selfish and petty and terrible and I almost strangled you a few times over it and rocks weren't around. I see Conner or Jonathan or even Tess, such as she is, and I see people I can save or did save. I see you and all I see is how I failed."

"And I'm still standing. Luthors are rather hard to kill."

Clark laughed at that, feeling the tension finally ease. After Lionel had bled over from another universe and Tess been reincarnated as Watchtower and Lex's own resurrection and meta-abilities, yes, Luthors never went anywhere and, oddly, that comforted Clark. If anything ever did happen to him, something like Doomsday again or Darkseid's next attempt to rise, then Lex would still be there, survive as he always did. He'd be there for Chloe and Jonathan and their daughter on the way. And Lex, whichever incarnation, was many things but no one would hurt the people he cared about and get away with that. Maybe it wasn't noble but that reassured Clark a lot.

"Most of us aren't. Except for mom, that seems to be a big pre-requisite for this family. I failed you and somehow we clash so bad and I'm just worse for being near you. I get it, that's more even my fault than yours, but I hate how petty I get with you."

"That is ragingly immature, yes," Lex said but Clark noticed the other man had gone back to testing light strands. That was progress.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Chloe really likes you, and Jonathan always talks about his Uncle Lex and the cool library you have."

"He's really very much a mini-Sullivan, isn't he?"

"I'm smart!"

"His love of my stuff is you, Clark. He always wants to see my garage first, but the need to suck up everything like a sponge and ask a million questions is Chloe. Whatever will you do with two of them?"

"I don't know. I barely sleep enough now and I don't even need that much."

"Touche," Lex added, starting with the first strand at the bottom of the tree. If he minded getting needles on his slacks, he didn't say anything. "He's very cute, Clark, reminds me of you too. How wide-eyed he is."

"I was never that naive."

Lex smirked and started attaching the second string. "Oh you were worse, like having been in a bubble."

"Well Lois tells stories no five year old needs to hear. I...if Conner can vouch for you too, I get it...I just wish I'd done better."

"Then," Lex said, handing him a giant knotted mess that was presumably a light strand once. "Do. I'm not going anywhere, and clearly I've done the Dark Side and it didn't work out. We'll just be honest this time and see how it goes."

"Thanks, so we make up and I get to do the knot off doom."

"Can't you superspeed that done?"

"I might tear things. I...uh...am the worst at delicate stuff in superspeed. This, uh, could take a while."

Lex grinned. "Oh, I know."

"You, Lex Luthor, overdid," Chloe said half falling onto the couch beside him. Jonathan was upstairs passed out and Clark and Conner were on patrol. All of them had seen the set up and oohed and ahhed, but Chloe had been shaking her head at him ever since.

"I didn't," he objected.

"I didn't own all those breakable ornaments before or the arrangements of poinsettas or the garlands on the railings or the-"

"This is a good time of year," Lex offered, wishing Chloe couldn't read him quite as well. He might have, just a bit, taken the liberty of having his team come in and really up the Kent Christmas decorations after Clark had had to run out in the middle of everything to stop a fire spreading through the warehouse district. "I was just feeling things out last year. I wanted to have-"

"The Christmas you never did before?" she asked, both hands spread over her ever-expanding stomach. He swore if she got much rounder over the next few months, she'd just have to be wheeled around. "It's very sweet. You don't have to. If you literally had just broken out all our old ones, including the stupid macaroni things that Clark made in kindgergarten, it would have been fine."

"I wanted to try. It'll be hard enough having Christmas dinner with dear old sis the mind rapist on conference call."

"You did murder her. It's not optimal," Chloe pointed out sharply. "I just mean that I know your M.O. Clark saved your life as kids and you bought him a truck. He left for Metropolis after the ship blew up and everything went to Hell and you bought the farm back. You don't have to buy him."

Lex conisdered that and sipped his soda. He was humoring Chloe. She'd made up this rule that if she couldn't drink, no one with her could either. He suspected that was more because she'd been eyeing his Scotch intake over Thanksgiving and not much to do with any lush tendencies she might have had. "I can't do that, and I think we aired things, got some things out of the way."

"I noticed. You didn't test some Kryptonian strenght Xanax on him because while useful that would be wrong."

"Of course not. We just talked, would that we had about a dozen years ago or more."

"We're where we are now," she said, trying to sit up and failing miserably.

He picked her up a bit and shook his head. "I'll get us both Gingerale refills. I wouldn't be a gentleman if I made you waddle, Sullivan."

"And I'm not an invalid."

"Nope, just a planet," he riposted, filling everything up under her death glare before continuing. Once he handed her off his refill, Lex added. "I just wanted a good Christmas. You've gotten them a lot I suspect since first with Oliver and now Clark, especially Clark. Martha's so down-home."

"Well, yeah."

"I...he's maddest about Conner, and I think that might always feel like a violation. I can remember doing it, even if I wasn't the one. Remember taking the coffee cup myself off his desk-joy of owning that same building he works in. I wasn't...God, I wasn't thinking straight then."

"I can't imagine you were, no," Chloe said, her voice quiet and soothing. He appreciated that.

"I just wanted a part of Clark so badly."

"You can't get him to notice you or that the feelings are deeper if you buy out a hundred light stores and flower shops, you do get that, right?"

"Luthors show love by killing each other. We show affection to others by buying them. It's all I know how to do, Chloe, besides he can't...what would be the point of it?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I'll blame pregnancy brain better, but we're all we've got."

"You two have a whole League."

"Most of the newer members don't know our id's, don't kid yourself. I just meant that there's always been some thread between the three of us, I felt it so strongly no matter how dumb we were to take on Lionel as just kids."

"I was a whole twenty-four."

"Yes, that made all the difference," Chloe snorted.

"So?"

"Well there's Conner and the kids and everything all swirled together and, maybe, I don't know either."

Lex sat down next to her and was relieved she let him drape his arm over her shoulder. "Neither do I. I know there's always been one thing I've wanted whether I was tabula rasa or just waking up on the river bank, but he has no clue and that's...I just wanted a nice set up. You have one. Keep all the ornaments. Consider it an early gift."

Chloe surprised him out of nowhere by kissing him on the cheek and lingering longer than she had to. "Let me think on this. You might have business and alien-fighting plans down, but I have Sullivan-Lane finesse."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "If that's anything like how your cousin stampedes through life, then I should be terrified."

"No, it's not," she said, sliding her fingers into his and letting their hands come to rest across her stomach.

The baby stirred a bit and she kicked so strongly. Lex wondered if Chloe understood that. He'd felt Julian and it had never been like that. Chloe might not even understand, since she'd never been pregnant by a human before. Not for the first time, he wondered if Clark staying with Lois in one sense would have done him a bit of good. Lex highly suspected that mutants and aliens may have needed to stay amongst their own kind, so to speak. With Lana and her miscarriage...he'd worked so hard to pretend he'd faked it. It was easier than letting her know his own mutation couldn't survive a generation down the line, made the baby unviable. Maybe Clark was beyond lucky to have found Chloe, realized everything finally.

Lex would have been, if he had done things differently, well, Clark wasn't the only one with regrets.

"So what are your terms? Your goals? Your mission statement?" he drilled her, his tone taking on that deep affected bass he thought of as Lionel preening, even now.

"My terms are you let me set the plan in action. My goal is to get us all what we really want. My mission statement is 'any means necessary.'"

"Probably not a good idea when dealing with us, morally gray and all that."

She laughed and curled in a bit more to him. "Then it's that 'I can make it better if some Kryptonians would just get with the program.'"

"Well, considering for just you two it took twelve years plus and a child."

"Well you and Clark have a child, kind of, and that was so what you were going for don't even deny."

"With you, no point, Chloe."

"Then let me work this over. I never said in some ways I was opposed to sharing was I?"

And that was enough to leave Lex coughing his drink all over the carpet.


End file.
